Athapascan Indians; Indians of North America -- California
In Merriam's notes there is no general statement on the Bahneko or North
Fork Wailaki; he was evidently somewhat undecided whether they were
truly a distinct group. However, he comments on the Tsennahkennes, or
Eel River Wailaki, as follows.
[Illustration: Map 5. Villages and tribelets of the Eel Wailaki and the
North Fork Wailaki. Roman numerals indicate tribelets, arabic numerals
village sites.]
Tsennahkennes ... A Nung-gah^{hl} Athabascan tribe in north-central
Mendocino County, California, occupying the greater part of the
mountainous country on both sides of main Eel River from Red Mountain
and the upper waters of East Branch South Fork Eel easterly to Salt
Creek, and from a few miles south of Harris southerly to Rattlesnake
Creek. Their territory thus includes the major part of Elkhorn Creek,
the headwaters of East Branch South Fork Eel, Milk Ranch Creek, and Red
Mountain Creek, practically all of Cedar Creek, and the whole of Bell
Springs and Blue Rock Creeks. The old stage road from Cummings north to
Harris, passing Blue Rock and Bell Springs, traverses their territory.
WAILAKI PHONOLOGY
It is clear that in recording Wailaki words Merriam followed the same
principles that guided him in his published works on other Californian
languages. In transcribing the Achomawi language he said (1928, p. vi),
"All Indian words are written in simple phonetic English, the vowels
having their normal alphabetic sounds." For a more precise determination
I have made a comparison of words recorded by both Merriam and Goddard.
The values of the symbols used by Goddard are taken from a list he
gives in his Wailaki Texts (1923_b_, p. 77) together with Phonetic
Transcription of American Indian Languages (Amer. Anthro. Assoc., 1916),
a report which Goddard helped prepare.
A total of twenty-eight words recorded by both Merriam and Goddard were
found. Although the discrepancies seem great, this is because Merriam
used Webster's English orthography whereas Goddard used a technical one
modified from the old Smithsonian system. Whatever the limitations of
Merriam's orthography for considerations of grammar (which he did not
try to obtain), his recordings consistently check Goddard's independent
information and serve as complete identifications of places and
ethnographic facts.
_Goddard's Wailaki Phonology_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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